


A Ship's Tour

by atamascolily



Category: The Adventures of Sinbad (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Study, F/M, Sinbad gets laid, Sinbad struggles with his feelings, filling in gaps
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2017-10-21
Packaged: 2019-01-20 13:07:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12433500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atamascolily/pseuds/atamascolily
Summary: Sinbad gives the courtesan Shirez a tour of theNomad. It's going well, except for the fact he can't stop thinking about Maeve. Good thing Sinbad excels at lying to himself.Takes place at the end of episode 2x05, "Ali Rashid and the Thieves," with some references to the events of that episode.





	A Ship's Tour

It really _had_ started out as a ship's tour. He'd taken Shirez, elegantly dressed in a fetching purple gown that left absolutely nothing to the imagination, around the deck, explaining details of ropes and rigging that she politely pretended interested her. They admired the view of the Bollnah harbor from the decks, and she pointed out all the city landmarks to him, the ones they hadn't encountered already when she'd taken him around to see Zorah, a soothsayer who had ended up being Rongar's sister and the new leader of Bollnah after the tyrant Ali Rashid's death. They watched the crew load up supplies for the next voyage, and discussed in vague generalities their plans for the future (Shirez to be a trusted confidant to Zorah in the palace, Sinbad to take a load of coffee and spices to Egypt, perhaps with some sightseeing on the side if the winds were fair). 

The problem was that the _Nomad_ just wasn't that big. So when they'd run out of preliminaries, the only thing left to do was to take her below deck, and of course, she'd wanted to see Sinbad's cabin (one of the perks of being captain was that you always got your own quarters, a real luxury on a boat like this one). And once they got into his cabin and the door was shut and securely latched (because Sinbad had learned the hard way what happened if you didn't check this first), Shirez had pushed herself into his arms and wasted no time making good on all the half-veiled promises and flirtations. And expecting that this was coming, he'd let her do it, let himself get carried away by her ardor and his own rising attraction before he has a chance to really think through the implications. 

He hasn't been with anybody for... ages, really. There were a few women on the way to Baghdad, after he'd washed up two years older on the Arabian shoreline with the rainbow bracelet on his wrist, but well before he'd ended up in the Caliph's dungeons and found Doubar again. From there, it was straight back to sea again on a mad quest to rescue the Caliph's future daughter-in-law from the sorcerer Turok. En route, he'd stopped by the Isle of Dawn to visit Master Dim-Dim, and met his new apprentice, Maeve - and somehow Maeve had ended up traveling with them, and he hadn't been with anybody since. 

Oh, he'd certainly looked a great deal - much to Maeve's disgust - but mostly he did that just to annoy her. And for the rest of it - could he help it that women found him handsome, that they just fell into his lap, or that they were always so grateful for his help and they wanted to thank him the best way they knew how (the way Shirez is silently thanking him now)? Could he help it that he had a past and a reputation to keep up, or that he'd run into ex-lovers like Talia, the Black Rose of Oman, who expected him to be the headstrong lusty youth they'd known? (He hadn't slept with Talia again, not even that night they'd spent together in a suspended iron cage, and not just because the shaking would have disturbed the giant spider that was supposed to eat them both as punishment for attempted theft. Did Maeve even give him any credit for that?) Was it his fault that Maeve had some sort of history with Rumina, or that Rumina had a thing for him, or that he'd had to take advantage of that attraction to save all their skins? 

But somehow, despite all the opportunities, he hadn't been able to bring himself to go all the way just to piss Maeve off - and then, somehow, he'd surprised himself by not even _wanting_ to any more. And now Maeve is gone, and now it didn't matter what she thought because she isn't here to tell him about it in such strong language exactly what kind of faithless cad he is, or how she'd feel if she knew what he is doing with Shirez right now, because she was forever out of reach, just like Master Dim-Dim and she is never coming back -

That's it. That's the crux right there. He doesn't believe she is actually coming back. She's dead to him, just like Leah is dead - the two women he's felt the most deeply for (both improbably redheads), both tumbled backwards into the sea, and he couldn't save either one of them. He tried - he knows how to swim now, he should have been able to save Maeve if it was possible to save her. But he failed her, the same way he failed Master Dim-Dim and maybe she really is with Master Dim-Dim now, somewhere outside of this world, where he can't find them no matter how far he sails or how many riddles he solves. Or maybe she really is dead and it was all just a trick, a hallucination, that convinced him otherwise. (Just because Doubar and the others saw it too doesn't mean it can't be a trick. They've been tricked so many times before.) 

He failed her and she's gone. He never got to say good-bye. Never got to tell her how much she meant to him, how much he'd learned from her, how much she inspired him, how much he wanted to make her smile, how much she'd made _him_ smile- Does anything else matter after that? 

If he is ever going to open up to anyone about this, it would be now, when Shirez is doing what she is doing with her lips and tongue. If he is ever going to let anyone see his pain, confess his loss, this would be the moment. And yet even as he gasps in pleasure at Shirez's caresses, Sinbad's heart wrenches in pain and he shoves down the impulse to cry out, to let the loss he feels so deeply show on his face, and interrupt the moment. 

He can trust Shirez. He has already trusted her - his crew would likely be dead right now if she hadn't helped him against Ali Rashid, at the very real risk of her own life. He is trusting her now, not to stab him when he's vulnerable like this, when she is pressed up against him, kissing him as if there is no tomorrow. He can trust Shirez. 

But not with this. Not about Maeve. Shirez wouldn't understand about Maeve. He's betraying everything with Maeve so far and yet this is one line he won't cross, he can't cross. The only way he can keep doing what he's doing right now is to never let her name pass his lips and he doesn't want to stop. If abstinence would ensure Maeve would come back, he'd push Shirez away in a heartbeat, but he knows already that life - even a magical, fantastical, adventurous life that he leads - doesn't really work like that. It's not a fairy tale, after all. 

He can't tell Shirez about Maeve. She wouldn't understand how the apprentice magician makes him feel, wouldn't undertand how wonderful and exasperating Maeve is, all the things that made Maeve who she really was. Shirez wouldn't understand Dermott, or how much Maeve cared for the hawk, and how she treated him like a person (and he'd seen enough to know that Dermott was no ordinary bird, and worthy of a great deal of respect). Shirez wouldn't understand, and in trying to explain, he would lose not only the courtesan, but also, somehow, Maeve herself. Lose the last thing he had left of her - his memories. Somehow, speaking them aloud to Shirez would expose the most precious thing he has left of Maeve and ruin them, something that belongs to him and Maeve alone.

Shirez lives in a world of back-stabbing and intrigue, where the difference between life and death lie satisfying a tyrant's whims. (By all indications, she's very good at satisfying whims.) Shirez admires Sinbad's face, his voice, his strong hands, his tanned skin, but above all, his _power_ \- she has an intuitive understanding of power, and latched onto him like a lifeline from the moment they met a few days ago, in defiance of Ali Rashid. He used it, because her attraction was a useful tool, and he needed all the tools he could get to keep Rongar and the rest of his crew from harm. 

Shirez has clung to him from the beginning and - well, he hasn't said no, only "later," and now it is later and here they are together and it's time to make good, if he's going to make good. He doesn't have to, he's not obligated to give her anything (nor she him) but he knows instinctively that Shirez's attraction depends on him maintaining control, and if he speaks now, he'll lose her. Worse: he'll surrender his advantage and leave _her_ in control, with power over him because she'll know his secret. She'll know how he can be hurt. 

She'll know that Maeve is the key to his heart and she doesn't have it. And even if she doesn't really want Sinbad's heart or expect it - she is a courtesan, after all, she knows all about the fickleness of men - she won't be pleased to know the truth. This much, Sinbad has learned from experience: no woman he's ever met has ever appreciated the knowledge they are not The Only One (or at least The Only One Right now, if not The Only One Ever, which is why he's learned the hard way only one lady friend per port). Especially not in the middle of things. 

And he and Shirez are oh so definitely in the middle of things right now. 

Shirez wants a romantic hero, and he knows how to oblige. He tilts her head back and kisses her, pushing her down onto the little cubby in the wall that serves as his bed (no common sailor's hammock for him!). He's used to being in control, used to being the more experienced one, but it's clear that Shirez is his equal, if not his superior, when it comes to the arts of love. He wonders if her training includes the study of erotic engravings like the ones he's seen in India - needing no translation - or if it's just a happy coincidence. Either way, he'll take it. 

Shirez's hair isn't red-gold like Maeve's, but it is long and flowing and curls at his finger-tips and if he closes his eyes, he can pretend. Never mind that he can't imagine Maeve ever kissing him like this (not unless she's had more practice than she lets on). Never mind that he probably wouldn't be doing this with Maeve if she were here (except in those guilty secret fantasies he's vaguely ashamed of and doesn't know why. He's not sixteen years old anymore and a fumbling virgin, damn it, but somehow Maeve always makes him feel like it all over again). He's here, and Shirez is here, and she wants him, and she's very willing, and he's just so tired of being alone. Even if Shirez can't touch the numbness in his chest, the numbness that's been there ever since the storm washed Maeve overboard, it's still nice not to be alone... 

Maybe if he loses himself with Shirez, he won't have to feel the pain of his failure anymore. Or at least not for a while. Shirez loves Sinbad the romantic hero - she believes him to be that hero, and he hasn't disappointed her thus far. She might not be so interested if she knew the truth about Sinbad's failures, but she hasn't asked and so Sinbad doesn't have to feel guilty about not telling her. 

As long as he focuses on the present moment - on Shirez, on what's she doing, on her squeals of pleasure as he reciprocates - everything is fine. And, for the first time in years, he can lose himself in the ecstasy and all other troublesome thoughts are banished from his mind. No guilt. No blame. No failure. No pain. 

For the first time in a long time, peace. 

*** 

He wakes to mid-afternoon sunlight streaming through the porthole to the cabin. Gulls cry outside, and he can feel the steady shifting as the _Nomad_ rocks in the water. There's a woman nestled under him, pleasing and warm, and her long hair is tangled in his face. "Maeve?" he whispers for a second, in that blissful moment of ignorance before reality kicks in and he remembers who he is and all that has befallen him. 

Miracle of miracles, Shirez doesn't hear him, her flushed face slack in the afterglow with sleep. Clearly, the nautical life agrees with her. He sits up gingerly, pushing away the cascade of hair, and strokes her face gently with his hand. 

At his touch, she wakes, and snuggles closer against him, pulling his hand down towards her breasts. "Hey, sailor." 

"That's Captain Sinbad to you." But he smiles as he says it, and his tone is light and playful, and he lets her take the lead. "So? Do I live up to my reputation?" 

Shirez yawns, stretching like a cat, her motions pushing Sinbad's hands deeper into her chest. "The stories don't do you any justice, I'm afraid."

"Glad to know I didn't disappoint." He extricates his hands, and they help each other dress, flirting companionably with each other, but with no real urgency to it, each moving slowly and steadily, towards the inevitable departure. 

"I never knew that a ship's tour could be so... exhilirating," Shirez sighs as they emerge from below decks back into the open air. He blinks at the sudden brilliance of the light, and helps her along, as she has no sea legs to speak of. He knows what she's expecting, so he tilts her head back and kisses her, deeply, passionately, ignoring Doubar rolling his eyes in the background. He'll deal with his older brother later. Right now, there's this. 

"Next time you're in port?" Shirez whispers to him, as he helps her off the boat and back on shore again. 

"You can count on it." Sinbad gives her a knowing wink. She pauses as a brown-cloaked figure on the jetty tilts back the hood of his cloak to reveal Rongar. Shirez nods to him as she passes, and smiles. Sinbad smiles, too - he expected Rongar to return to the ship after saying good-bye to his sister, but you never know. 

_You never know where someone's heart is going to stick, after all._

He pushes down the pain that comes with the thought - now is not the time for that. Right now, the wind and tide are with them, the holds are full of cargo, the crew is all aboard and ready to sail, and he's just said good-bye to a beautiful woman who pleases both his body and his ego (and who, refreshingly, has no desire for entanglements or other sentimental claptrap). Focus on the present moment, watch Rongar smile as the others welcome him aboard, focus on the voyage that is about to begin, and the inevitable adventures that away. 

As long as he can keep moving, Sinbad knows he'll be all right. As long as he can keep busy - and oh, Shirez was very good at keeping him busy - he'll be okay.


End file.
